An Island Refuge
A few weeks ago, I visited Roosevelt Island for the first time in over six years. The aerial tram was crowded when I boarded and everyone had cameras ready as we began our ascent over the East River. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought the skinny little island east of Manhattan would be a good place to enjoy one of the first sunny weekends of the year.
But as a former resident, I found the number of tourists baffling. Roosevelt Island is probably the most boring neighborhood in New York, a place with pretty river views and not much else to see or do. Historically, it has been the site of a prison, an asylum and a quarantine hospital, and when I lived there, I sometimes had the feeling that my neighbors and I were exiles of Manhattan, people who just couldn’t hack it, for one reason or another.
Continued at The New York Times
A Novelist Imagines Arcadia
Three-year-old Beckett Kallman has just figured out that his mother, Lauren Groff, writes novels.
“It’s a very strange feeling for him,” Ms. Groff said, in a telephone interview from her home in Gainesville, Fla. “When I put him to bed, he asks, ‘Can I read one of your books?’ And I say, ‘Not yet.’”
Undoubtedly, it will be even stranger for Beckett when he discovers that his mother’s second novel, Arcadia(Voice, 304 pages, $25.99), the story of a boy growing up in a Utopian commune, is dedicated to him. And perhaps even stranger when he learns that the little boy in question was inspired by his birth.
The Tale of a ‘Fashion Terrorist’
THE novelist Alex Gilvarry was in the midst of a fashion emergency. Perusing the racks of Oak, a trendy boutique in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, he looked for a sweater to cover up a mustard stain on his plaid shirt. In a few hours, he would speak to M.F.A. students at Hunter College, his alma mater, and he didn’t want to look like a slob.
(Continued at The New York Times)
Two Stories about Wall Street
For The Millions:
After a couple days of hemming and hawing, I decided to join the protesters of Occupy Wall Street. I was hesitant to go because until very recently, I worked as an administrative assistant at a prominent Wall Street law firm. I didn’t know how, in good conscience, I could rail against The Man when my primary responsibility had once been to keep track of incoming phone calls from Goldman Sachs. But then I heard one of the protest’s organizers on the radio saying that the Occupy movement wasn’t against capitalism, corporations, or even big banking. He was for income equality. And democracy. The reporter pressed him to be more specific, but he refused.
“Why do they have to be more specific?” I yelled at the radio. “Isn’t it obvious why they’re upset?”
The Trials and Tribulations of Alex Shakar
A profile of Alex Shakar, author of The Savage Girl and the forthcoming novel, Luminarium
Reading Women
Thoughts on Jamaica Kincaid’s Autobiography of My Mother for Granta.com
That Irresistible Idea: An Interview With Maura Candela
“When I was growing up, I felt like everyone had the same idea of the neighborhood—it was your defense against being invisible. It’s almost like Manhattan was not thought of as a place to live.”
Voices From Japan
Talking with Roland Kelts about a special English-language edition of the Japanese literary magazine, Monkey Business
Jonathan Baumbach Kicks and Screams in ‘Dreams of Molly’
Where most authors’ shelves are lined with books, a wall in Jonathan Baumbach’s living room is devoted entirely to videocassettes, many of them bootlegged copies with yellowed, handwritten labels.
